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Operation: This is how your really SmashEm

I plan to use this operation/blog to post my results, plans, goals and such. But I also plan to post some articles on strategies specific to my style and my stakes. These articles, posts, or just plain ramblings are for my own sake but anyone is welcome to use them or post about them. I do not post them in other forums, nor do I post to help any beginners because the strategy for beginners is so heavily geared towards TAGG style play, anything I would have to say would be anti-productive. That, and the simple fact that I believe any advice on a hand history is pointless unless the poster has very specific details on villains image, heros image, last 10 hands, etc....

However, if you are a "thinking" player, playing the 25NL, or even 50-100 and lower, I welcome your discussion.

Before i get started with posting year-to-date results, I will clarify what my style is. I am TAGG, LAGG, Maniac, fish, retard, nit, I am whatever I need to be to take stacks from the villains at my table.

I want to clarify though, if you are a learning player and have read all the articles on how to play TAGG style poker, by all means keep going down that path if you choose. It is without a doubt a profitable style.

My first post will be about table selection. There are tons of articles out there that will all tell you the same thing... Find a table with nits on your left and fish on your right. Although that is is definitely good advice, for those of you reading this I want you to think about table selection a little bit different. We are not looking specifically for a nit on our left, or a 40/2/0 fish on our right. Position is important, there is no question, but instead of looking for specific styles of players on your table, just look for the one type of player that will always be profitable... and that type of player is simply a bad poker player. It can be a terrible TAGG, or terrible calling station, it doesn't matter. You need the tools to exploit and extract from ALL styles of players if you want to maintain a steady and high win rate.

Yes, having nits on our left to which we can easily steal the blinds from, and fish on our right to which we always have position on is great, but there are a TON of tables out there with 5 NITS, or 5 calling stations that are BOTH very profitable to sit at.

Why am I saying this, well, because if you spend a bunch of time trying to find a table dynamic that fits YOUR style of play, you will be looking for the right tables way too often.

Instead of looking for a table that is going to be most profitable to a pre-determined strategy, just sit down, watch some hands, and ADJUST your strategy.

What do I look for? Well i simply go to pokertableratings.com and search the tables at my stage. I find the most active table and I sit down. thats it.

Active tables = more hands = more mistakes = more profits.
Watch the table, find the mistakes, exploit the mistakes.

Summary:
- find tables where you will have position on exploitable players
- watch some hands, make some notes, take some stacks.
- if things slow down, move to another table
- if villain catches on to you, change things up, manipulate, etc....
- fish on your left is great, but not absolutely necassary

1. Take this with a grain of salt, since I haven't played 25nl in a long time. I also never single tabled 25nl. My gut tells me that a 40bb/100 winrate is likely not sustainable, even one tabling. So I'd just keep that in mind.
2. Under the assumption that even if 40bb/100 isn't attainable, that a good winrate is. I would NOT worry too much about your red line. If you're killing it, just keep killing it. Only the green "total winnings" line matters.
3. On the topic of single tabling. Have you considered adding more tables? If you double the tables, you can afford to cut your winrate in half and still make the same hourly.
4. Also just in general I would try not to set winrate goals. You have no control over winrate. Just play your A game, and set volume goals instead. Set goals that you can control.

Just my two cents. Good luck at the tables!

Originally Posted by Jay-Z

I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks

Griffey, thanks for the comments here are my thoughts:
1 - You may be correct that 40bb/100 might not be sustainable, but with that said I have seen many people say that even 15bb/100 isn't sustainable unless you are some sort of pro. I truly believe that a high winrate, whether its 40bb or even 25bb is in fact sustainable... but time will tell. This is primarily because of table selection and the fact that I am playing with terrible players on a regular basis.
2 - As far as the redline, I agree, if you are smashing it then just keep smashing it. However, the reason I am focusing on my redline is because it is a tell tale sign that I am "off my game". If you look at my chart, you will see my winrate slowed down between 8-16k hands... this is 100% due to redline going down, folding too much etc... I have the redline back under control now, and will post more about this soon as I plan to talk about redline winnings soon.
3 - I have thought about it, infact years ago I played over 1 million hands 2-tabling and 4-tabling. However, single tabling is precisely why I believe I can maintain a high winrate. I am constantly studying villains, their play, hand histories on the go etcc... whereas I do not have the time for this when multitabling and I turn into auto-pilot mode.
4 - you are correct here and I agree. My only reasoning behind targeting 40bb is because I truly believe my style and strategy is not very susceptible to "running bad". There are so many ways to keep your greenline moving upwards at this stake it is crazy. Long story short, I believe if I am playing my A game, I will hit 40bb every month, regardless of how many "cold decks", "bad beats" or "coolers".

#4 has a lot to do with my next post later today or tomorrow, which is about "diversifying" your play by utilizing an arsenal of every style there is. (Tagg/Lagg etc...).

I have no plans or trigger point to move up. I plan to work on a write a lot about strategies, techniques and such, and I plan to do a lot of "experimenting" in April. I would much prefer to do this at 25NL

One key part of maintaining stable win rates is diversifying your play. If you have more weapons, techniques, tricks and such you have more ways to win. If you are a nitty player dependant on your hole cards, your win rate will drop every time you hit a cold deck, bad beats, or anytime there is a solid player at your table capable of exploiting nits. If you diversify your play, you are not putting all your eggs in one basket and will see less variance, if the deck is cold you will still be able to win with plain aggression.,, this list goes on.

How do you diversify your play? Well, you are going to take all the tools that each style of player uses and you are going to perfect all of them. LAGGs use aggression as there main weapon, and ultimately bluff alot. Nits use simple position and premium hands. TAGGS use premium hands, position and well timed aggression, fish (the good fish) use passiveness in disguise and wake up on the river with a monster that beats you. maniacs, they use FEAR. Fear that if you call on the flop, you are paying your stack to see a river...

But what do Taggs, laggs, nits and fish all have in common? They are ALL exploitable.

If I had to use metaphors to describe this, which I will do because I use metaphors ALOT, I would compare NL holdem to Martial Arts.

Think about diversification in MMA. If you had to pick the likely winner in a fight out of the follwing types, who would you pick?
Professional Boxer
Kickboxer
Wrestler
streetfighter
Mixed Martial Artist

Think about players at your table like this:
a NIT is like a boxer waiting around for that one "haymaker" to knock you out, and has no other ways of beating you. And if you hit him first, he's done.
A Maniac is like a streetfighter just attacking without discipline or strategy and hoping for the best, and if you hit him first he goes crazy berserk and makes even more mistakes.
A fish is like, well, a fish is like that weak little b*tch that never fights back
A LAGG is like the streetfighter, they just have a little more discipline but are still very predicatable.
and finally the TAGG, the TAGG is like the bare fist striker that uses smarts and opportunity, but still doesn't stand a chance against a mixed martial artist.

MMA fighters have many tools, they know how to wrestle, they know how to strike, karate, ju jitsu, boxing, etc.... and most of all they know how and when to adjust to their opponent, and which skills to utilize for a victory.

So, diversify, learn how to use the wide range of tools out there, those tools do not belong to any certain style of player.

Some of the basic tools are:
Aggression (the TAGGS/LAGGS primary tool)
bluffing (The maniacs primary tool)

some advanced tools to think about:
inducing bluffs
isolation
stealing flops/turns/rivers
manipulating your image
controlling the table, forcing
image manipulation
exploiting weakness
exploiting certain flop textures in and out of position
show weakness to induce aggression and vis versa
use your think tank to make THEM think

you have the control and ability to control your image at the table. You can make yourself look like a solid player, who deserves respect on the turn. But when you lose that respect, is your strategy done with? the answer is heck no, now you are going to exploit the crap out of the 5 guys at the table who think you are an idiot.

LEARN HOW THEY REACT TO EVERY EVENT and take advantage of it.

If you were to ask me what my table stats are (VPIP/PR/3bet) etc... my answer would be "it depends". My vpip, pfr, 3bet, cbet and all other stats is absolutely dependant on the villains at my table. Which leads me to my word of advice for the day.

word of the day:
ALWAYS have your hud displaying Current table stats on your villains.

1. Take this with a grain of salt, since I haven't played 25nl in a long time. I also never single tabled 25nl. My gut tells me that a 40bb/100 winrate is likely not sustainable, even one tabling. So I'd just keep that in mind.
2. Under the assumption that even if 40bb/100 isn't attainable, that a good winrate is. I would NOT worry too much about your red line. If you're killing it, just keep killing it. Only the green "total winnings" line matters.
3. On the topic of single tabling. Have you considered adding more tables? If you double the tables, you can afford to cut your winrate in half and still make the same hourly.
4. Also just in general I would try not to set winrate goals. You have no control over winrate. Just play your A game, and set volume goals instead. Set goals that you can control.

TI truly believe my style and strategy is not very susceptible to "running bad".

i've run bad from time to time, and i've run pretty hot occasionally too.
run set under set a few times then lose a few more 80-20s than you expect for a while, then run into tops of ranges and have your bluffs called at higher than standard frequencies for a bit and that's some runbad. It happens. The

the higher your true winrate in the games you sit, the more likely it is that you will be ahead of breakeven when the runbad hits = if you're still winning maybe it doesn't count as runbad quite the same

2. Under the assumption that even if 40bb/100 isn't attainable, that a good winrate is. I would NOT worry too much about your red line. If you're killing it, just keep killing it. Only the green "total winnings" line matters.

Griffey/Daven, I would agree with this statement if I were speaking to a beginner who is just getting on their feet, on the premise that redline winnings are maybe something that shouldn't be focused on when you are learning how to play the game. But realistically, and I mean know disrespect, but I believe the redline winnings is one of biggest, if not the biggest, indicator of post flop play.

In my personal opinion, the redline is equally as important as the blue line, and if each of them isn't given the correct amount of attention/improvement, then there is $$ left at the tables.

see picture of my graph that shows where my redline problems began, when they were resolved, and teh effect of my winrate (greenline)

** Note that the blue line showdown winnings is consistent all the way through, so there is no correlating loss of showdown value when my non-showdown improves.

You will see in the chart that I lost control of my redline for 10K hands, and it cost me just under 40 buy ins. You can also see that my winrate nearly doubled as soon as I stabilized the redline again.

give me your thoughts guys, im really interested in some discussion about this that isn't like the million pi$$ing contests we can read about re: redline winnings lol....Attachment 818

Griffey/Daven, I would agree with this statement if I were speaking to a beginner who is just getting on their feet, on the premise that redline winnings are maybe something that shouldn't be focused on when you are learning how to play the game. But realistically, and I mean know disrespect, but I believe the redline winnings is one of biggest, if not the biggest, indicator of post flop play.

In my personal opinion, the redline is equally as important as the blue line, and if each of them isn't given the correct amount of attention/improvement, then there is $$ left at the tables.

see picture of my graph that shows where my redline problems began, when they were resolved, and teh effect of my winrate (greenline)

** Note that the blue line showdown winnings is consistent all the way through, so there is no correlating loss of showdown value when my non-showdown improves.

You will see in the chart that I lost control of my redline for 10K hands, and it cost me just under 40 buy ins. You can also see that my winrate nearly doubled as soon as I stabilized the redline again.

give me your thoughts guys, im really interested in some discussion about this that isn't like the million pi$$ing contests we can read about re: redline winnings lol....Attachment 818

Historically on this site, my graphs have been one of very few ppl who had a huge upward redline, and a break-even or downward blue line, and a marginally OK increasing green line.

There are so many variables / factors that influence red line that it's hard to say a blanket statement like "improving red line is important".

Main factors which influence red line:
1) Bluffing frequency - Barreling etc: Sure if you can find perfect spots to add double barrel bluffs or triple barrel bluffs or bluff shoves that will rarely get called, then yes that will help your red line and not hurt your blue line. But I wouldn't say you're simply trying to "improve your red line" in this case, I would say you're trying to find more profitable bluffing opportunities.

If you bluff too often/poorly then the times it works your red line will go way up, and the times it doesn't your blue line will take a hit.

2) Calling frequency - If you become a huge station, your red line will sky rocket. You won't be throwing away non-showdown losses because you'll be going to the river so much, so your blue line will take the gains or losses.

Combine points 1 and 2 and become a Bluffing Calling Station - Then your red line will literally NEVER go down. The only situation it would go down for this kind of player is when they triple barrel a river as a bluff, get shoved on and have to fold.

So yes, instead of "improving your red line" I would say you should work on:
1) Finding better bluffing opportunities / spots for profitable bluffs
2) Find hands where you are currently folding to barrels in spots that should be +EV calling down and calling the river.

Also your graph didn't work above for me, but any basis on a 10k hand sample is FAR too small.

Originally Posted by Jay-Z

I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks

ok so I more or less accidently fixed my redline.... and it turns out I unknowingly took your advice lol
I wasn't working specifically on redline or even worrying about it for the last couple weeks and guess what... it fixed itself. So oddly enough, it looks like I was correct in the fact that my downward redline was showing that there was an issue, but you were correct in the fact that not thinking about it too much is the best route to go.

in summary, just like many many other topics, just playing my A game fixed er up. I will standby my opinion though that redline winnings is a good indicator for me as to whther or not I am playing my a game ( at this level anyway ). When I am on my game, my redline is break even or close to break even.

anyways, next subject....

for the month of April I continued to smash 25nl. winrate for the month somewhere around 32bb/100, and about 37bb/100 year to date. I will update at the end of the month with results and goals etc... but wanted to start thinking about my plan for MAY.

Well, I am naturally result orientated and enjoy working my way up the leaderboards on PTR, but its obviously not a good enough reason to stay at 25nl.
so the question is, which will bring more $$.... adding a table or moving up to 50NL.

turns out it is actually a no brainer. reason being, as soon as I add a table I cannot play the casual tables at party poker, which are the softests games ive ever played. so instead of running 2 tables full of regular multitablers, I am leaning towards moving up and single tabling the casual 50NL tables for May.

part of me thinks that I just need to carry the confidence I have at 25nl into 50nl and I should be able to crush it too.

it seems like a no braininer, since I only need 1/2 the winrate to make it a break even move. but when I moved up to 50Nl earlier this year for a while I just felt like I was playing terrible. I couldn't see any reason as to why I wasn't smashing it for 30bb like I do at 25nl. instead I was at about 8bb or something.

jeez, I must be way too result orientated. I seriously hate the idea of giving up on the 25nl yearly leaderboards, so stupid..

and then if the above hand wasnt bad enough, then there was this hand against same fish... this took me to a total of 4 buy ins down for the session,,,,, i thought for sure this was my break even shove,,, i knew for sure the fish was calling with any flush and any 6,,, so i shove for value lol ... puuuuuke!!!

SB had A, A (three of a kind, Aces).
UTG didn't show
Hero had 10, 10 (one pair, tens).
Outcome: SB won $423.63

so... earlier in the year i took a shot at 100NL.... i started with a heater... up 12 buyins or something then 18 down with a stretch of coolers. that was in FEB i think and it was enough to send me crying back to 25nl...

so here in MAY, i took another shot, and started up 6 buy ins, then tonight lost all 6.

anyways, some of the hands tonight, especially the last hand (TT) proves to me that 100NL just tilts me too much,,,, so im purging 100nl hands and going to try and forget about it and pack my bags... im going back to 25/50 again.

im happy about it though, i only lost what i gained .... but frankly i cant handle the coolers at 100nl obvioulsy... it tilts me so the heck with it,,, ill keep smashing 25/50nl and take another shot later in the year maybe

seriously though, i know all about coolers and I know sh!t happens, these sessions are inevitable....

so, just for my own reference..... the reason i am saying the hell with 100NL is because I clearly cannot stick to my A-game. If tonight would have been at the 25 or 50 l tables, i suspect the 6 buy in loss would have only been 2.... i dont tilt at 25 or 50 so thats where ill play.

So you have taken your seat at a 25 or 50nl table, and you've managed to find a nice table where you have 2 or more bad players, hopefully to your immediate right.

I said before, I like to use metaphors... so I am going to use some again.

Let's think about the table you have sat down at as a classroom at school in the good ol years.

What do you do at a classroom in school? you learn.
how? by watching, listening and studying.

So when you've folded your 72o, are you leaning back whispering to friends, watching you tube, twiddling your thumbs etc....?
Or are you watching your opponents plays, and taking notes about their tendencies, their tells, their weaknesses etc....

Do reads really help?

well take me for example. I can relax, sit down and smash 25NL very easily. But put me in front of 4 different tables, or turn the tv on with my favorite hockey team and that's it, I am lucky if I stay in the green at all.

To give some insight I did a little experiment this month, what I did is I multitabled 4 tables at party, the speed tables, so needless to say there was no time to think much, and certainly no time to get reads. in fact, its new people every hand so getting reads is essentially impossible.

The results were,
after 28K hands of my normal single tabling play, I am running a shade under 40bb/100, and have NEVER gone 1,000 straight hands without being in the green.

however, the results of my experiment at the speed tables was that after about 4K hands my win rate plummeted to just over break even. Not to mention the fact that I was over and under the break even line several times through the 4K hands.

So, the point is, if you have the time to study your opponents, you WILL increase your winrate. if you don't have the time, MAKE the time.

What reads are worth noting at 25 / 50NL?

----------------------

1 - ANY play by villain on any street that is clearly the incorrect play. For example, calling a 3bet with t8o. Most people would suggest using abbreviations for notes such as "CC'd 3B IP w/T8o". However, My note on such a play would look more like this... "DO NOT 3BET BLUFF: Capable of calling 3Bets with garbage IP x 1", and if I see it again I change the x1 to x2.

2 - ANY unusual play that just makes no sense whatsoever. For example, if you see a villain donk the flop and turn with a min bet and pot bet the brick on the river, make a note of it. Make note of what he donked the flop with, and especially make note of what he pot bet the river with. Some terrible players out there will have air 100% of the time here, while others will have the nutz 100% of the time. My notes on this would look like this.... "MINI DONK = AIR min bet F/T and pot river with AIR/no drawx1" or "MINI DONKS = STRENGTH min bet F/T and pot river after flopping nutzx1".

3 - Tendancies. This is probably the most important and valuable type of note, and to make it easy just start all these notes with "tends to....."
examples of tendancies that WILL increase your profitability vs villain:
"tends to donk flop if he catches anything"
"tends to tilt easy"
"tends to bluff in bad spots"
"tends to play loosely and chase pots when things aren't going well"
"tends to be sneaky when strong and misses a ton of value"

Lastly, if you see some terrible players on a regular basis, don't be afraid to write a general summary of the player. I have several guys that I have a paragraph on that would seriously look something like this...
"this guy has no clue about the game. bets/calls/raises make no sense whatsoever. If this guy is at the table, wait for a premium hand and pot-bet ALL streets with TPTK or better"

or...

"this guy either raises or folds in almost any situation. bet this guy off all his hands and fold when he plays back"

so I did some good ol calculations to compare my hourly winrate so far this month between 50NL regular and the fast/speed tables.

I have been trying to focus on 50NL regular single tabling, but as I noted earlier there isn't a lot of players on when I am...

however, one thing that is clear so far is that the fast tables are clearly more profitable if I sustain a decent winrate....

I ran over 35bb/100 all year at 25nl, and am running even higher at 50nl so far (small size).... but neither of those winrates compare to 100nl fast tables....

infact, it is looking as though if I were to play 100% 100nl fast tables, all I have to do is break even 0.00bb/100 in order to make the same $$ as I did at 25nl. The rakeback and races alone will me me the same $$/hour.

hmmmm.....

anyways, im sticking to my plan for June but I am already 9 days in and don't even have 2K hands at 50nl since there just isn't any traffic.

by mid-june I very well could be posting again to say I am moving to 100NL fast tables full time....

by the way, Im a hardcore blackhawks fan and cant believe they are down 2-1 to the lightning!!!

So you have taken your seat at a 25 or 50nl table, and you've managed to find a nice table where you have 2 or more bad players, hopefully to your immediate right.

I said before, I like to use metaphors... so I am going to use some again.

Let's think about the table you have sat down at as a classroom at school in the good ol years.

What do you do at a classroom in school? you learn.
how? by watching, listening and studying.

So when you've folded your 72o, are you leaning back whispering to friends, watching you tube, twiddling your thumbs etc....?
Or are you watching your opponents plays, and taking notes about their tendencies, their tells, their weaknesses etc....

Do reads really help?

well take me for example. I can relax, sit down and smash 25NL very easily. But put me in front of 4 different tables, or turn the tv on with my favorite hockey team and that's it, I am lucky if I stay in the green at all.

To give some insight I did a little experiment this month, what I did is I multitabled 4 tables at party, the speed tables, so needless to say there was no time to think much, and certainly no time to get reads. in fact, its new people every hand so getting reads is essentially impossible.

The results were,
after 28K hands of my normal single tabling play, I am running a shade under 40bb/100, and have NEVER gone 1,000 straight hands without being in the green.

however, the results of my experiment at the speed tables was that after about 4K hands my win rate plummeted to just over break even. Not to mention the fact that I was over and under the break even line several times through the 4K hands.

So, the point is, if you have the time to study your opponents, you WILL increase your winrate. if you don't have the time, MAKE the time.

What reads are worth noting at 25 / 50NL?

----------------------

1 - ANY play by villain on any street that is clearly the incorrect play. For example, calling a 3bet with t8o. Most people would suggest using abbreviations for notes such as "CC'd 3B IP w/T8o". However, My note on such a play would look more like this... "DO NOT 3BET BLUFF: Capable of calling 3Bets with garbage IP x 1", and if I see it again I change the x1 to x2.

2 - ANY unusual play that just makes no sense whatsoever. For example, if you see a villain donk the flop and turn with a min bet and pot bet the brick on the river, make a note of it. Make note of what he donked the flop with, and especially make note of what he pot bet the river with. Some terrible players out there will have air 100% of the time here, while others will have the nutz 100% of the time. My notes on this would look like this.... "MINI DONK = AIR min bet F/T and pot river with AIR/no drawx1" or "MINI DONKS = STRENGTH min bet F/T and pot river after flopping nutzx1".

3 - Tendancies. This is probably the most important and valuable type of note, and to make it easy just start all these notes with "tends to....."
examples of tendancies that WILL increase your profitability vs villain:
"tends to donk flop if he catches anything"
"tends to tilt easy"
"tends to bluff in bad spots"
"tends to play loosely and chase pots when things aren't going well"
"tends to be sneaky when strong and misses a ton of value"

Lastly, if you see some terrible players on a regular basis, don't be afraid to write a general summary of the player. I have several guys that I have a paragraph on that would seriously look something like this...
"this guy has no clue about the game. bets/calls/raises make no sense whatsoever. If this guy is at the table, wait for a premium hand and pot-bet ALL streets with TPTK or better"

or...

"this guy either raises or folds in almost any situation. bet this guy off all his hands and fold when he plays back"

Very useful, thanks.I make my notes on paper, then go back through PT4 and expand them if neccessary

I have been working on a value system to use for PT$'s table tracker (table selection tool)... and using my own database consisting of 25/50/100 NL, i discovered some interesting information as I was working on this. So, I thought Id share it with you all as it kinda gives a snapshot of a few things.

the things that popped out to me after looking at this information are:

1 - There are WAAAAY more fish out there than I though. according to this info, 1 in 5 hands in my database are from players playing over 40% of their hands.
2 - Mathematically and theoretically speaking, if you were playing 6max with a table full of guys running 30vpip, which is a gold mine, you are actually better off at a table full of regular nits and just one fish running 50vpip...
3 - 58% of hands played are by players running 20-29vpip
4 - there appears to be a huge increase in losses between 40vpip and 50vpip, then again another big jump at 60vpip.